The European Juniperus Habitat in the Sardinian Coastal Dunes: Implication for Conservation
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Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 164 (2015) 214e220 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecss The European Juniperus habitat in the Sardinian coastal dunes: Implication for conservation * Maria Silvia Pinna 1, Eva Maria Canadas~ 2, Giuseppe Fenu , 3, Gianluigi Bacchetta Centro Conservazione Biodiversita (CCB), Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e dell'Ambiente, Universita degli Studi di Cagliari, Viale S. Ignazio da Laconi 11-13, I-09123 Cagliari, Italy article info abstract Article history: In this study, we explore the influence of environmental and anthropogenic factors on the floristic Received 27 October 2014 variability of the “coastal dunes with Juniperus spp.” European habitat (code 2250*) in Sardinia. Two Received in revised form datasets were created: the first by inputting phytosociological releves available in literature plus our own 5 May 2015 samplings; the second by including, for each releve, environmental, floristic, and human-related factors. Accepted 25 July 2015 Differences in Juniperus habitat composition and the influence of the explanatory variables were Available online 30 July 2015 analyzed by multivariate analysis, while GLM were used to test the effect of human disturbance and sampling period on several habitat parameters (plant richness, cover of endemic and alien taxa). The Keywords: fl fi fl Mediterranean coastal dunes oristic composition differed among sites, being signi cantly in uenced by all the variables analyzed Endemic species except coastal type. Composition was governed mainly by a latitudinal gradient, linked to a climatic Human impact gradient, which varied from North to South. In addition, the floristic richness was positively influenced Alien species by low and medium levels of human disturbance. Similarly, the plant richness and cover of endemic taxa Phytosociological surveys was positively related to medium level of human disturbance, while the cover of alien taxa was positively Sardinia related to recent sampling. The analysis of our own floristic data together with those recorded from 1976 is useful to monitor floristic changes over decades and gives a better understanding of the “coastal dunes with Juniperus spp.” habitat to contribute to its conservation; therefore, management actions, such as eradication of alien taxa, should be implemented. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction European Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), this shows the high het- erogeneity of all coastal dune habitats in Europe. However, the Coastal dune ecosystems host high biodiversity, compared with structure and composition of plant communities are not only other natural ecosystems, and show an extremely specialized flora affected by environmental factors such as the high sand mobility, and fauna (Carranza et al., 2008). This is because of the intricate the wind impact, the salt spray, and sand accretion (Maun, 2009), interactions between abiotic and biotic factors in coastal dunes that but also by anthropogenic factors, since human disturbance has cause a complex sea-to-inland environmental gradient (Carranza increased greatly in the last two centuries in coastal systems et al., 2008; Prisco et al., 2012; Fenu et al., 2013a; Angiolini et al., (Nordstrom, 2000; Brown et al., 2008). The rapid increase in a wide 2013). This gradient determines a gradual change in vegetation, range of human activities (urbanization, agriculture, forestry, in- and, as 17 coastal habitat types were listed in Annex I of the dustry, transport and tourism, etc.) has led to a progressive dete- rioration and biodiversity loss, causing fragmentation and a dramatic decline in the distribution and quality of dune habitats (Davenport and Davenport, 2006; Reger et al., 2007; Arianoutsou * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (G. Fenu). et al., 2012). 1 Present address: DIAEE Dipartimento di Ingegneria Astronautica Elettrica ed As such, many works have highlighted the effects of human Energetica, Sapienza Universita di Roma, Corso Vittorio Emanuele II 244, I-00186 disturbance on the plant diversity of coastal dunes in the Medi- Roma, Italy. terranean region (e.g., van der Meulen and Salman, 1996; Acosta 2 Present address: Departamento de Botanica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad et al., 2006; Carboni et al., 2009; Attorre et al., 2013; Fenu et al., de Granada, Avda. Fuentenueva, s/n, Granada 18071, Spain. 3 Present address: Dipartimento di Biologia Ambientale, Sapienza Universitadi 2012, 2013a; Santoro et al., 2012; Ciccarelli, 2014). In Italy, the Roma, Piazzale A. Moro 5, I-00185 Roma, Italy. overall conservation status of coastal habitats is unsatisfactory for http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2015.07.032 0272-7714/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. M.S. Pinna et al. / Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 164 (2015) 214e220 215 86.7% of the sites (Biondi and Zivkovic, 2014). In particular, Prisco and sampling period were assigned as anthropogenic variables. In et al. (2013) demonstrated that mobile and fixed dunes (including particular, three levels of human disturbance were established 2120, 2210, 2250 habitats), are projected to lose most of their dis- (low, medium and high), on the basis of data on arrivals, nights tribution area in the near future. Certainly, the ‘coastal dunes with spent, and capacity of tourist accommodation in Sardinia during Juniperus spp.’ habitat (code 2250 in the Habitats Directive; Juni- the tourist season (data from http://www.sardegnastatistiche.it/ perus habitat, hereafter), which is the focus of this study, has a argomenti/turismo). Regarding sampling period, releves were rather reduced size as a consequence of human pressure grouped in two categories: old sampling, including the releves (Arianoutsou et al., 2012). This habitat comprises juniper scrubs or carried out before 1996 (n ¼ 94), and recent sampling, for those micro-forests, which represent the most mature stage of psam- subsequent to 2000 (n ¼ 60), since the influx of tourism on the mophilous succession on coastal sand dunes in a variety of situa- coasts of Sardinia has been increasing sharply from this date. Plant tions (Biondi et al., 2009; Fenu et al., 2013a). It is characterized parameters included: plant cover, species number (richness), as mainly by Juniperus communis L., in thermo-Atlantic coastal dunes well as number and cover of endemic and alien taxa. Specifically, of Central/Northern Europe, or Juniperus macrocarpa Sm. and for endemic and alien species we followed Bacchetta et al. (2012a,b) Juniperus phoenicea L. var. turbinata (Guss.) Parl., in Southern and Podda et al. (2011), respectively. Europe. It is widely distributed along the Mediterranean and Atlantic sandy coasts of Southern and Western Europe and sec- 2.2. Data analysis ondly in Central and Northern Europe (European Commission, 2007; Biondi et al., 2009). Italy hosts the largest surface area of Firstly, we performed multivariate analyses by using the R vegan this habitat in Europe (including the 39% of the total) and approx. package (Oksanen et al., 2012). We tested changes in Juniperus 5% of the European surface is located in Sardinia (Picchi, 2008). This habitat composition and the influence of the explanatory variables priority habitat for conservation in the Mediterranean Basin is through ordinations and permutational multivariate analysis of highly threatened by human related-factors (i.e. touristic settle- variance (PERMANOVA; Anderson, 2001) using the ‘adonis’ proce- ments, urbanization) and alien plant species invasion as well as dure (Oksanen et al., 2012). Subsequently, we used Non-Metric from other pressure such as coastal erosion, habitat fragmentation, Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) to visualize the relationship in forest fire and pollution (Paradis et al., 2004; Picchi, 2008; Attorre our study area between plant species composition, sites and et al., 2013; Del Vecchio et al., 2013). Juniperus habitat shows crit- explanatory variables. In addition, we used a General Linear ical constraints for the natural recovery (Pinna et al., 2014a, b), Model (GLM) to test the effect of human disturbance and some studies have dealt with this habitat (e.g. Gehu et al., 1990; sampling period on plant richness, as well as on cover of endemic Paradis, 1991; Piazza and Paradis, 1998; Munoz-Reinoso,~ 2004; and alien taxa. GLM were fitted specifying a Poisson error Paradis et al., 2004; Díez-Garretas and Asensi, 2014), but the key distribution and log as a link function. All statistical analyses to solving conservation problems are far from being understood. were performed using the R statistical package (R Development Therefore, new studies are needed to increase the knowledge of Core Team, 2012). this priority habitat and to provide tools for its conservation. This is the overall goal of the present study, and the specific aims are: (1) 3. Results to explore the floristic variability of Juniperus habitat in Sardinia in relation to environmental and human variables, and (2) to evaluate 3.1. Factors influencing floristic composition spatio-temporal changes in key plant parameters by analyzing samples located in areas with several human disturbance levels and The total mean cover of the Juniperus habitat in Sardinia was performed in different periods. 85.3% (habitat cover for each releve was calculated by the sum of the cover of each species). The mean cover of the two Juniperus 2. Materials and methods species was 53.32%. The most frequent taxa were Pistacia lentiscus